OHP PAYS $75,000 TO SETTLE LAWSUIT

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol agreed to pay $75,000 Wednesday to settle
a lawsuit filed by a black Army sergeant and his son who were stopped
and searched for more than two hours.

Public Safety Commissioner Bob Ricks said he agreed to the settlement
to avoid a costly trial. He said the troopers involved in the stop
had done nothing wrong.

U.S. District Judge David Russell had dismissed claims in the case
that the OHP engaged in racial profiling. A remaining claim that
troopers Branson Perry and Bob Colbert had violated the Fourth
Amendment to the Constitution by conducting an illegal search and
detention of Rossano Gerald and his then-12-year-old son was set for
trial when the settlement occurred.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the state chapter of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also were
plaintiffs in the suit.

Though terms of the settlement had been sealed by a federal judge,
the settlement was made public Wednesday at the request of the Tulsa
World.

Gov. Frank Keating said he was pleased that the case had been
concluded "with the court dismissing all racial profiling allegations
against the DPS and the individual troopers. I am also glad to see
the details of the settlement of this case were released to the
public, which has the right to know what occurred."

Keating also pointed out that the case was settled to avoid a costly
trial and that the settlement "is in no way an admission of guilt."

Robert McCampbell, an Oklahoma City attorney hired by the Department
of Public Safety to defend the suit, asked Russell to open a hearing
Wednesday during which the settlement was discussed. McCampbell has
been nominated as the new U.S. attorney for the Western District,
where the lawsuit was filed.

The settlement calls for a payment of $51,250 to Rossano Gerald, the
sergeant who was stopped on Aug. 13, 1998. It also calls for a
payment of $20,000 into a trust fund for his son, now 15, and $3,750
in fees for Gerald's attorney, John Coyle of Oklahoma City. The boy
will have access to the funds when he turns 18 or by court order.

The payments will come from an insurance policy purchased by the
Department of Public Safety.

Ricks said the settlement is not an admission that the patrol
violated the rights of Gerald and his son.

"It gets down to a dollars-and-cents case. The state would be
spending tax money to go to trial."

Ricks said the agency had already spent about $150,000 to defend the suit.

"I do not agree that the search and detention were unreasonable.
There's no finding of wrongdoing. I have substantially reviewed the
conduct of the troopers involved and I find nothing wrong with what
they did," he said.

Gerald, a decorated veteran of Operation Desert Storm, was stopped by
the OHP on Interstate 40 near the Arkansas border. The suit claims
that Gerald and his son, Gregory, were placed in a hot patrol car
while troopers repeatedly searched his Nissan 300 ZX.

At one point during the search, a trooper asked Gregory if he had any
weapons and conducted a pat search of the boy, the suit claims. It
states that Gregory was taken from his father and placed in a patrol
car with a barking drug dog inside while troopers questioned him.

After a search lasting more than two hours that turned up no evidence
of drugs, Gerald was allowed to leave with a warning ticket for
failure to signal a lane change.

In a deposition in the case, Gerald states that "deep down in my
heart, I know Trooper Perry pulled me over because I was a black
male. He stared me down, pulled me over, he harassed me, he harassed
my son, he threatened me, he took my son away from me."

"I think I serve my country well. I never want my son to see racism
like this happen," the deposition states.

Gerald also states that the traffic stop "has scarred us for life."
He said the boy has had nightmares and problems in school that he
believes are related to the ordeal.

"He wants to become a lawyer so this won't happen again. . . . He
said he wanted to make it right. Not only for him, but for the rest
of the kids."

An order by Russell states that the Geralds failed to prove racially
disparate treatment by the OHP, in part because there are no
statistics that address how often the OHP stops and searches blacks
as compared with whites.

Rep. Opio Toure, D-Oklahoma City, said he will ask for an interim
study to determine whether law enforcement agencies statewide should
be required to collect statistics on the races of those they stop.
Toure was a sponsor of the state's new racial profiling law, which
took effect last year.

Toure said he had originally included data collection in his bill but
struck that requirement after opposition from law enforcement.

Ricks said on behalf of others in the law enforcement community, he
opposed any requirement for data collection when the law was being
considered. He said such requirements would be too difficult and
expensive for smaller agencies, though the OHP had the ability to
comply.